6 Perfect Piecrusts

The first step to creating a beautiful crust: getting the dough into the pie plate without tearing it. After you've rolled out the dough so that it's about 3 inches larger in diameter than your pie plate, place the rolling pin at the side of the round farthest from you. Then, moving the pin toward you, loosely roll the dough back over the pin so that you end up with a dough-wrapped roller. Carefully place it over the pie plate, on the side nearest you, and slowly unfurl the dough into the plate, moving the rolling pin away from you. Use your fingertips to fit dough into pie plate by pressing it down into the bottom and up sides (don't stretch it, though — it'll just shrink back when baking). Trim the edge, leaving a 1-inch overhang. Fold the overhang under, and press together with a fingertip and thumb all the way around the crust to form a stand-up edge. Now you're ready to design an edge.

Zigzag Piecrust

Zigzag Piecrust

With kitchen shears, make diagonal cuts, 1/2 inch apart, around edge of crust to rim of pie plate. Using index finger and thumb of one hand, gently pinch each cut piece and alternately point toward center and rim.